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EIGHT
AZTEC
HUMAN
ALFREDO
UNIVERSIDAD
LOPÉZ
NACIONAL
Stereotypes
NACIONAL
are persistent
they are conceptions
AUSTIN,
AUTÓNOMA
LEONARDO
INSTITUTO
SACRIFICE
LÓPEZ
DE MÉXICO,
LUJÁN,
DE ANTROPOLOGíA
ideas of reality generally
accepted
that simplify and even caricaturize
phenomena
they l11ay include value judgments
or ambiguous.
refers to orie's own tradition,
virtuous,
E HISTORIA
by a social group. In many cases,
applied to societies or cultures,
If the stereotype
of a complex nature. When
that are true or false, specific
it emphasizes
and it tends to praise: The Greeks are recalled as philosophers
builders. On the other hand, if the stereotype
the faulty, and it tends to denigrate:
are cannibals,
ANO
the positive and the
and the Romans
as great
refers to another tradition , it stresses the negative,
For many, Sicilians naturally
belong to the Mafia, Pygrnies
and the Aztecs were cruel sacrificers.
As we will see, many lines of evidence
deeply rooted religious traditions
confirm
that hurnan
of the Aztecs. However,
sacrifice was one the most
it is clear that the Aztecs were not the
only ancient people that carried out massacres in honor of their gods, and there is insufficient
quantitative
inforrnation
to determine
whether
the Aztecs were the people who practiced
man sacrifice 1110stoften. Indeed, sacred texts, literary works, historie documents,
evidence
determine
contributed
by archaeology
and physical anthropology,
that the practice of hurnan sacrifice was common
and especially
enable religious
historians
and Bronze Ages. Furthermore,
hurnan sacrifice is well docurnented
cal Greece and ROl11e. In Africa and Asia, sacrifice arose thousands
the Egyptian
pharaohs
habitually
immolated
were buried with their farnilies and entourage.
prisoners
ofyears
dating
for Classi-
ago: We know that
of war and the highest governors
of Ur
Many other examples of ritual violence ha ve been
recorded in the history of India, China, japan, and the Fiji Islands. Evidently,
tinent was no exception.
to
in most parts of the ancient world.
For exarnple, evidence of sacrifice and can n iba lism has emerged in l11any parts ofEurope,
to the Neolithic
hu-
There is ample archaeological
and iconographic
the American
con-
evidence of the bloody
137
massacres carried out by the Moche civilization
ofPeru,
Maya region, Oaxaca, the Gulf Coast, and Teotihuacan,
north, including
Mississippian
by many Mesoarnerican
peoples ofthe
and by peoples that lived much farther
peoples and natives of the southwestern
There were all sorts of massacres in the ancient world. In the
United States.
ubian kingdorn
of Kerrna,
the bodies of 111
e n , women, and children shared the same sacrificial grave; in India, a woman was
beheaded annually in honor of the goddess Kali; in Carthage,
children were dedicated to the god
Baal when there was threat of war. Some peoples stand out for their cruelty, such as the japanese, who buried victims alive to protect castles and bridges; the Celts, who caged victirns and
set thern afire, or the Dayaks ofBorneo,
peoples-including
the inhabitants
who executed
ofBengal
tions, sorne of which were still perforrned
THE AZTEC
victims with bamboo
needles. Certain
and Dahoruey-e-are famous for their mass imrnola-
in the nineteenth
century.
IMAGE
If the practice ofhuman
sacrifice was so widespread
in the ancient world, why is it so often associ-
ated with the Aztecs? Part of the answer lies in Spanish efforts to justify conguest from the very
moment
they arrived on the American
Eu ropea n monarchies
the
the privilege
continent.
Spain and Portugal
these natives and inhabitants
impose the good ways upon them." As a consequence,
of Christianiry.
To legitimize
their conguest,
cation of human sacrifice and cannibalism
During
witnessed
their stay on the Veracruz
their extended
by force in order to save innocent
coast and their ascent to highland
stay at Tenochtitlan,
ofthe
ing that, taking advantage
conguered
subseguently
the Spanish
capital of the Aztec empire, allowed
the very diverse ceremonies
solidified the scereotype
lives and souls.
Mexico,
by peoples who were enemies, subjects, or allies
them to observe, in all its complexity,
of conguest,
faith and
the Spanish assumed the role of defenders
This experience
and the achievement
in the Catholic
they claimed that their mission included the eradi-
multiple human sacrifices performed
of the Aztecs. However,
VI in 1493 to take possession of
granted by Pope Alexander
ew World in order to "indoctrinate
had to justify to the other
destruction
that climaxed in ritual killing.
ofTenochtitlan
throughout
of the Aztecs as sacri ficers par excellence.
the process
It is not surpris-
of this charge leveled by the Spanish, other native peoples who were
denied their own tradition
and accused the Aztecs of originating
these
bloody rituals in their territories.
As centuries
passed, the stereotype
al110ng both the dominant
ever, nationalistic
Mexico
prompted
ofthe cruelty ofthe Aztecs spread, acquiring
classes and the general population
new nuances
of New Spain and Europe.
How-
ideologies in New Spain at the end of the colonial era and later in independent
a reassessment
of pre-Hispanic
hu man sacrifice,
sometimes
objectively
and
other times falling into an opposite stereotype.
Currently,
opinion
both in Mexico
on this multifaceted
and the rest of the world,
subject. At one extreme,
there is an entire range of popular
there are those who perceive the Aztecs
as the biggest sacrificers in world history. Such a view is often found in literature,
television documentaries,
magazines, and
where the subject is usually dealt with in a sensationalistic
hurnan sacrifice were the only aspect of the Aztec culture that is worthy of attention.
138
•
THE AZTEC
WORLD
manner, as if
Surprisingly,
this view continues as the justification
and marginalization
for the brutal process of invasion, genocide, dominance,
of native Mexican peoples that have taken place for more than five centu-
ries. At the other extreme, and also oversimplified, are those who deny that the Aztecs and their
contemporaries
offered human lives to the gods. They claim that the documentary
sources of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are invalid, arguing that the texts and images that describe
ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism are distorted works of the conquistadors and evangelizers
themselves, or ofthe converted or subjected natives. Some fundamentalist
idealize the pre-Hispanic
past, imagining peaceful societies engaging in astronomy, mathematics,
philosophy, and poetry, and recommend
THE EVIDENCE
groups went so far as to
OF HUMAN
an artificial revival of their values.
SACRIFICE
There are other much more rigorous ways to study such a complex phenomenon,
with its eco-
nomic, political, religious, and ethical implications. The social sciences offer a framework free of
oversimplification
based on varied, objective forms of evidence. The scientific method offers an
objective, critical means to evaluate the hypotheses and theories that try to explain social institutions and processes in their historie and cultural contexto In the specific case of Aztec sacrifice,
a good number of serious, reliable scientific publications of different orientations
them, we can recommend
existo Among
La jieur létale [The Lethal Flower] by Christian Duverger, Ritual Hu-
man Sacrifice in Mesoamerica edited by Elizabeth H. Boone, El sacrificio humano entre los mexicas [Human Sacrifice among the Mexicas] by Yólotl González Torres, The Human
Body and Ideology by
Alfredo López Austin, City 01 Sacrifice by Davíd Carrasco, Le sacrifice humain chez les aztéques [Human Sacrifice Among the Aztecs] by Michel Graulich, and Sacrificio mesoamericano [Mesoamerican
Sacrifice] edited by Leonardo López Luján and Guilhem Olivier. These publications rely mainly
on the documentary
sources produced in the first decades of the colonial period: the Nahuatl
pictographs and texts written in Latin characters by the natives; the tales of the conquistadors,
eyewitnesses to the religious life of Tenochtitlan,
and descriptions of the Aztec cult made by the
missionary friars. The seven publications mentioned
above are notable due to their attempts to
identify and evaluate the contexts and distortions of these sources, distancing themselves from
literal and naive reading of the historical information.
However,
no matter how rich the information
provided by the documentary
sources, it
must always be compared with data obtained from archeology and physical anthropology.
that most of the historical information
Given
relative to Aztec sacrifice refers to the sacred precinct of
Tenochtitlan, we quickly see the importance
of material evidence recovered from this site during
the excavations of the Templo Mayor Project between 1978 and 2007.
Among the discoveries made, the téchcatl, or stone upon which sacrificiaJ victims were
stretched as they were ritually killed, provides the most solid evidence of human sacrifice. Two
of these stones were exhumed at the summit of one of the oldest stages of the Templo Mayor
(c. 1390) (López Austin and López Luján 2001). They were located at the entrances of the two
chapels that guard the images of Huitzilopochtli
where they were visible to the multitude
(the sun god) and Tlaloc (the god of rain),
that congregated
at the base of the pyramid to attend
AZTEC
HUMAN
SACRIFICE
•
139
ceremonies.
Huitzilopochtli's
stone was a smooth basalt polyhedron
the floor. The stone of Tlaloc was a sculpture
a cylindrical
altar fastened to his abdomen,
and height ofboth
which reached a height of 51 centimeters.
stones assured their ability to function
the lumbar area, so that they could be bent backward
Sacrificial knives were similarly important
one thousand
knives ha ve been recovered
stone of great strength,
to penetrate
resenting
though
faces converting
they are ineffective
as tables for supporting
The form
the victims in
in arder to remove their hearts.
to date. These instruments
are made of flint, a hard
The knives are lanceolated
out the heart. A number
them into personified
for performing
from
(López Luján 2005) (Figure 2). A little more than
which can be sharpened.
the body before cutting
monstrous
that rose 50 centimeters
of the rain god (Figure 1), lying on its back with
with an acute point
of them have an ornament
rep-
symbols ofthe sacrificial instrument,
the rite. These have been identified
by specialists as
mere votive objects.
We should also consider
Templo
Mayor and adjoining
logical projects
1978; Román
children-mainly
diseases-whose
buildings.
of the victims
that were buried by the Aztecs at the
If we add up the data from four successive archaeo-
in the area, the total reaches 126 individuals
1966; Peña Gómez
forty-two
the remains
(Estrada Balmori
1990; López Luján 2005; Chávez
males and suffering
from anemia,
2005). Among
parasitism,
to Huitzilopochtli.
these are
and gastrointestinal
throats were slit in honor of the god of rain, and a forty-third
rernoval of the heart and dedicated
1979; Angula
child, killed by
A second group is made up offorty-seven
adult heads, almost all men, whose skulls and first vertebrae were found in the main architectural
axes of the pyramid.
Another
group includes three skulls with perforations
at the temples, which
indicate that they come from tzompantli, the rack where trophy heads irnpaled on wooden poles
were exhibited.
Last, we must mention
thirty-three
skull-rnasks
god of death (Figure 3); these consist of the facial portion
representing
Mictlantecuhtli,
of the skulls adorned with shells and
pyrite as eyes, and with sacrificial knives to simulate the nose and tongue.
Figure l. A drawing of a sacrificial stone (chacmoo/) found at the entrance to the chapel of the god of rain,
Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan, Phase 11(c. 1390 AD). Drowing by Fernando Carrizosa Mont(ort. courtesy o(Proyecto
Templo Mayor. INAH.
I
---------------------------
140
•
THE AZTEC
WORLD
Figure 2. Sacrificial flint knives from an offering at the Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan.
Recently, traces ofblood
on the surfaces of divine images, altars, and stucco floors have been
identified (Figures 4 and 5). Thanks to modern techniques, significant concentrations
bumin (the main protein in blood), and human hemoglobin
These and other pieces of evidence corroborate
tained in the documentary
ofiron, al-
were detected (López Luján 2006).
the graphic and textual information
con-
sources ofthe sixteenth century, and they lead us to conclude, without
doubt, that human sacrifice was a basic practice of the Aztec rel igion. At the same time, the evidence demonstrates that the numbers in the historical sources may be wildly exaggerated. There
is quite a long way from the skeletal remains of the 126 individuals found so far in all construction
stages of the Templo Mayor and its thirteen adjoining buildings to the 80,400 victims mentioned
in a couple of documents
for one single event: The dedication
of an expansion of the Templo
Mayor in 1487. In this regard, it is interesting to add that the largest number ofbodies associated
with a religious venue in Central Mexico was recorded in the classical city of Teotihuacan
not in Tenochtitlan.
and
The ex'cavations done at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid brought to light
that this religious building, which dates from 150 A.D., was consecrated with the sacri fice of at
least 137 individuals, almost all warriors (Sugiyama 2005). Recently, the remains of thirty-seven
individuals were found inside the Moon Pyramid (Sugiyama and López Luján 2007).
AZTEC
HUMAN
SACRIFICE
•
141
Figure 3. Skull-mask representing
the God of Death, found at an offering of the Templo Mayor. Tenochtitlan.
Figure 5. Image of the God of Death being bathed in human blood from the Codex Magliabechiano.
SACRIFICE AND
WORLDVIEW
In order to fully understand
human sacrifice in the Aztec culture, it is necessary to analyze the
links between this practice and pre-Hispanic
conceptions of the universe, the gods, man, and all
of the creatures with which they interacted in daily life. Human sacrifice is incomprehensible
us if we do not take into account its location and its connection
worldview
of sacrifice as an isolated phenomenon
and an immediate
repudiation
based on the study ofhistorical
will bring about an easy con-
of the people who practice it. In contrast, a scientific
perspective will go beyond passingjudgment
surrounding
to the immense puzzle we call
(López Austin, 1988).
A simplistic perception
demnation
to
since it will attempt to develop explanations that are
conditions, religious customs, and social institutions and relations
sacrifice.
In the Mesoamerican
religious tradition,
humans imagined a universe in which the space-
time belonging exclusively to the gods (the beyond) was distinguished
from the space-time cre-
ated by the gods for the creatures (the world). The latter was occupied by human beings, animals,
plants, minerals, meteors, and stars, but it was also for the gods and supernatural
144
THE AZTEC
WORLD
forces whose
invisible presence meshed with the mundane. Divinity infiltrated all creatures, to give them their.
essential characteristics and to enliven, energize, transform, damage, and destroy them. In other
words, creatures were conceived by the Aztecs and their contemporaries
as mixed entities, made
up of divine substances (subtle, eternal, predating the forrnation of the world) and worldly substances (hard, heavy, perceptible, destructible, which enveloped the divine elements).
The Aztecs believed that in primitive times many gods had been expelled from their heavenly dwelling for having violated the established order. One of the exiled, called Nanahuatzin,
then decided to immolate himself in a bonfire. As a consequence of his courageous effort, Nanahuatzin descended to the netherworld
in order to reernerge from there in the east, transformed
into the first creature: the Sun. In this way he becarne the king of the world in gestation. However, the Sun refused to go to the sky until alJ his brothers imitated him, accepting sacrifice. The
expelJed gods could not avoid death, through which they descended to the cold place of darkness,
where they acquired-like
the Sun-a
heavy and destructible shell. Thus it was that they were
transformed into every type of worldly being: Pilzintecuhtli
created the deer, Xolotl the amphib-
ians called axolotl, Yappan the dark scorpions, his wife, Tlahuitzin,
In short, through
the light scorpions, et cetera.
sacrifice the gods became creature creators. From that time, the Sun could
begin its daily movernent, and day and night followed each other.
The world of creatures communicated
with the beyond through multiple portals. When the
Sun began to move, the portals allowed the formation of cycles, since the gods and the supernatural forces used thern to enter the world and withdraw
from ir. One cycle, for example, was
that of !ife and death: When creatures passed on, their divine substance was stripped from the
heavy worldly shell. The divine substance, now released, was sent to the netherworld,
it waited for an opporturiity
and there
to return to the world of creatures, giving rise to a new individual of
the sarne type. Another cycle was the succession of the dry and rainy seasons. Another was time,
shaped by the orderly appearance of gods who, with individual talents, periodically burst to the
surface of the earth and in their passing changed everything that existed.
As the gods passed through the world and fulfilled their roles, they got tired and eventually lost
their power. To recover their strength they had to be fed. That is why they created the human beings, creatures who were forced to worship them and feed them with offerings and sacrifices. Man
perceived hirnself to be a privileged being because ofhis close relationship with the gods, but at the
sarne time he was indebted to them because they had created him. Man also felt ob!igated beca use
he received vital energy from the fruits arising from Mother Earth and ripened by the Sun. His debt
was so great that the products of his labor were not sufficient to repay what he had acquired, and
therefore, he had to offer his own blood and, at the end of his !ife, the rernains of his body.
The relationship between human beings and the gods was interdependent.
Human beings
felt they were the beneficiaries of divine favors in their daily !ives and at all important moments of
their existence; they gratefully received rain, the fertility of the land, health, their own reproductive power, victory in war, et cetera. However, erratic rains, bad harvests, illnesses, and military
defeats created the belief in fickle, very strict, and, on occasion, avaricious gods. Therefore, the
faithful felt obligated to provide offerings and sacrifices to the gods to repay them for their gifts,
to please them, or to appease their wrath. They offered the gods the aroma of fiowers, incense,
tobacco smoke, the first fruits ofharvests,
and blood and flesh that sustained them. Human beings
AZTEC
HUMAN
SACRIFICE
•
145
thus fulfdled
an eternal
Sun, of the passage
participants
of time,
in the proper
With
thern
this logic,
were
sacrificial
the teteo imixiptlahuau
worn
out by their
knife,
they traveled
AND
of ancient
the world
with
are ancient.
(6000-4800
BC).
Tlatelcomila,
ritual
with
their
mediate
killing
change.
and began
The
This
supremacy.
The
the Maya
of Chiche
century,
who
returned
purposes
victorious
of these
its enern ies. This
invited
to these
with
festivals
explains
occasions
main
temple,
center
not only
precinct
146
the great
why
•
THE AZTEC
pyramid
WORLD
districts
ic zeal most
the Aztecs.
out
prisoners
through
ambitious
for their
of the rn ilitary
of those
of the Aztecs-was
subject,
who
as Coatepetl
("Hill
the imand
intensified
its
and pillag-
cornpeted
for military
were
the Toltecs,
The latter,
from
1430 and for
from the Pacific
is now
coast to the
Guatemala.
as a way for men to fulfill
sacrifice
(Hassig
campaigns
sacrificial
festivals.
of Tenochtitlan,
from
One
peoples
the Aztec
other
was considered
temples
enemies
which
of the
with
were
rule.
as the sun and a warrior.
their
1988).
instill ing fear in
and independent
of the Snakes"),
sacrificed
and
intensely
In this and many
of the city, the Aztecs
rite,
domains
had opposed
conceived
In contrast,
their
human
large
chiefdoms
basic principIes,
of this
military
prowess
of the allied,
but of the world.
of what
site of
the pace of political
were sanctioned
of the world
into
units
their borders
the death
known
following
political
phase
1997).
of their
gradual.
that expanded
carried
and can-
of the El Riego
transformed
meaning
to the borders
sacrifice
and Mansilla
and, of course,
the leaders
god
when
this hegemon
numerous
of Tenochtitlan,
and in various
allies
to witness
the
of rnain-
at the Late Forrnative
for expanding
wars of conquest
was to boast
Huitzilopochtli-patron
periods
the existence
of their
societies
very
rapidly,
obligation
comes from the cave
in Mexico
(Pijoan
have been
more
the divinities,
to the edge of a flint
of hurnan
transformation
changed
and southward
period,
roots
were
The
Thus,
by
and be born again there.
was recovered
as a pretext
during
wa rs of conquest
those
states
experienced
to perpetuate
and
must
much
sacrifice
mainly
the Late Postclassic
arrnies
and
The
societies
complex.
were
were possessed
of years the terrible
BC)
means
vicrirns
OF SACRIFICE
sacrifice
(700-500
District
n Itza, the Tarascans
waged
their holy mission
Aztec
they
happened
people
ofhuman
orne of
simply
other
times.
succumbing
to the hunter-gatherer
of cannibalism
changed
chiefdoms
of the Gulf of Mexico,
During
evidence
and concepts,
to use hurnan
After
their strength
for thousands
and Mesoamerican
practices
they beca me
considered
hand,
that these persons
in primitive
and that of his kind.
evidence
were
DIMENSIONS
Valley, dating
for this practice
economic
ing the weak.
blood
beca me increasingly
practice,
shores
passed
of the
On the one hand,
On the other
cycle on earth:
man obeyed
in the Federal
devotional
reasons
nearlya
Mexico,
earliest
Tetelpan,
As the centuries
states,
own
of the dead to recover
The most ancient
The
individuals
death they had suffered
their
his own
of the course
In this manner,
meanings.
It was believed
ECONOMIC
in the Tehuacán
of Coxcatlán
These
te the gods.
of the gods."
ended
of life and death.
had one of two rnain
food to compensa
to the region
THE POLlTICAL
nibalism
victirns
or "images
work,
of the cycles,
ing of the world.
to relive the sacrificial
In the tradition
the disruption
and of the succession
function
the most prized
the divinities
preventing
nextlahualtin, or "restitutions."
called
of payment,
taining
exchange,
His
the
in the sacred
the convic-
tion that their actions made them the saviors of humanity.
The common
people suffered the
consequences of the violent behavior of their rulers; nevertheless, they participated in this ideology, because they were immersed in a militaristic atmosphere, which exalted from childhood the
glory of weapons and the demands ofbloodthirsty
gods. Accordingly, the school, the temple, and
the militia were institutions strictly contro11ed by the government,
death on each subject of this "benefactor"
which imprinted the values of
state.
Evidently, the Aztecs were not the only ones who developed such a militaristic mentality. A11
neighboring
peoples shared this worldview, worshipped the same gods, and honored them with
similar rituals. This gave rise to xochiyaoyotl, or "the war of the flowers," an institution created by
the Aztecs and their enemies of the Puebla-Tlaxcala
Va11ey.Xochiyaoyotl
was based on a pact of
contro11ed, periodic battles, in which the contending
armies faced each other until one of them
asked for a truce. Curiously, there was no interest in gaining spoils, territory, or tribute. At the
end of the battle, both groups returned to their capitals bringing as a prize the enemies they had
captured alive for sacrifice (Figure 6). But little by little, the Aztecs reduced the male population
of the Puebla-Tlaxcala
Valley, weakening it economica11y and militarily. It is noteworthy
that a
sacred kinship was established between captor and prisoner, who called each other respectively
"father" and "son." Some authors have explained this association by the need of the offerer to
deliver to the gods someone of his own nature, his true substitute.
THE
DIVERSITY
OF SACRIFICE
Not a11individuals ritua11y sacrlficed were warriors captured in battle. The rites of killing had a
broad range of victims. Liturgy strictly dictated the origin, gender, age, and condition of those
who would die in ceremony. For example, a middle-aged
noble families of Tenochtitlan,
festivals of the agricultural
woman, descendant of one ofthe main
was chosen every year as victim for one of the most important
calendar (Figure 7); children with two cowlicks in their hair and
Figure 6. Sacrifice of prisoners of war
during the inauguration of the Templo
Mayor, Tenochtitlan in the year 1487.
Figure 7. Sacrifice of a woman personifying the
goddess of salt.
AZTEC
HUMAN
SACRIFICE
•
147
who had been born under a favorable sign were offered by their own pare~ts to the gods of rain
to guarantee
rains for the next season (Figure 8); albinos were a precious gift to strengthen
Sun during the feared eclipses, and a large group of dwarfs, humpbacks,
and servants of the king
were sacrificed after his death in order to help him in the other world. Evidently,
lack of those whose devotion
musicians, and prostitutes.
clarify, however,
drove them to deliver themselves voluntarily,
Another
important
In Tenochtitlan,
to his creditor as a dornestic servant. He remained
ing his service he could not be mistreated,
w ithout
his consent.
However,
was of a less strict nature
the slave was generally a debtor subject
nor could ownership
to the condition
on, he could be sold to merchants
be transferred
who wished to offer hirn to the
made a victim of sacrifice.
On many occasions the victims went to death adorned in garments
Dressed this way, they reenacted
on the ceremony,
of sacrifice and the disposal of the bodies. The most common
of the victim,
who was placed face up on a téchcatl (Figure
the heart by penetrating
sternum
lengthwise,
the thoracic cavity through
making
a small intercostal
tercostal cut from side to side, rupturing
ceremonies,
the liturgy dictated the method
death was by cutting out the heart
11). Whether
the abdomen
the sternum
transversely,
14). In other circumstances,
or they were thrown
breaking
the
is still under debate. In some
to a bonfire
(Figure 12),
with an obsidian sword in a gladiator-like
the victim's throat was slit, or victims were
locked away in caves or cavities made in a temple to die of suffocation
drowned;
the sacrificer cut out
and diaphragm,
cut on the left side of the thorax, or a long in-
injured by darts or arrows (Figure 13), or "scratched"
(Figure
that symbolically joined
mythical events, recreating
before the removal of the heart, the victim was subjected
confrontation
of his
slave" (Figure 10); from then
gods. FOTthis purpose he was ritually bathed and after purification,
divine actions in the time of mano Depending
to another person
and did not comply with the demands
of"wooden-collar
or other groups ofprofessionals
thern to the deities they personified.
as did certain priests,
a slave until he was able to repay his debt. Dur-
if he was unruly
master, he could be condemned
there was no
group was made up of slaves (Figure 9). We must
that slavery among the Aztecs and their neighbors
than, for example, among the Romans.
the
or starvation;
or they were
down from the top of a tall poleo It is possible that the Aztecs also
shared custorns used by other Mesoamerican
peoples, such as strangulation
with a net, eviscera-
tion, and cooking in a stearn bath. The Aztecs threw the dead bodies of the victims from the top
ofthe pyrarnids, decapitated
them, quartered
them, skinned them, or kept the head and the fémur
as sacred objects. At certain festivals they practiced the ritual consumption
cannibalistic
practice whose purpose was the communion
been made divine through
of the victirns' flesh, a
of the faithful with the body that had
sacrifice (Figure 15).
The occasions for sacrifice were varied. The large majority
of the solar calendar,
associated with the eighteen
day year was divided.
Sacrifices were also performed
260-day ritual calendar and cycles of f fty-two
months
occurred
of twenty
in the context
within
the framework
days into which the 365of other cycles, such as the
years. Outside of predetermined
ritual days, indi-
viduals were offered for military battles (Figure 16), either before the battle to avoid or win it, or
subsequently
to celebra te victory. Nurnerous
and consecrate
subsequent
with their blood the foundations
expansions
(Figure
during diseases, droughts,
148
•
prisoners of war were also sacrificed to strengthen
THE AZTEC
WORLD
of religious buildings
17). SOl11erites intended
floods, famines, and eclipses.
to reestablish
and to inaugurate
their
the safety and order lost
It is clear that the social phenomena of the remote past, including sacrifice and cannibalism, must
be viewed as existing beyond the simple dichotomy of good and evil. They must be critically
evaluated using the largest quantity of evidence possible. This is the only way in which we will
understand that the Aztecs-with
exaggerated ritual violence-were
Figure 17. Monolith
their virtues and faults, with their great contributions and their
as human as any other ancient people.
of the goddess of earth Tlaltecuhtli
found in 2006 at the foot of the Templo Mayor. This
divinity was fed human blood.
AZTEC
HUMAN
SACRIFICE
•
151
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Instituto Nacional
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e Hístoría
consejO
~
Nacional
para la
Cultura
y las Artes
Project Manager: Ariel Orlov
Editor: Esrher de Hollander
Designer: Kris Tobiassen
Production Manager: Jules Thomson
Library ofCongress
Cataloging-in-Publieation
Data:
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M.
The Aztee world / by Elizabeth M. Brumfiel and Gary M. Feinman.
p. cm.
Catalog ofan cxhibition to be held at The Field Museum, Chieago, from October 31,2008 to April19, 2009.
ISBN 978-0-8109-7278-0
(hardeover) ISBN 978-0-8109-8309-0
(paperbaek)
1. Aztees-Antiquities-Exhibitions.
2. Aztees-Histery-Exhibitions.
3. Mexieo-Antiquities-Exhibitions.
1. Feinman, Gary M. 11. Field Museum ofNatural History. 111.Title.
FI219.73.B782008
972'.01-de22
2007048998
Text copyright
© 2008 Elizabeth
M. Brumfiel
and Gary M. Feinman
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